Paradise Lost, by John Milton
I’m pleased to be able to release a new ebook edition of Milton’s Paradise Lost, with wonderful engravings by Gustave Doré.
In 1663, being now totally blind and somewhat helpless, Milton asked his friend Dr. Paget to recommend a wife for him. The lady chosen was Elizabeth Minshull, aged 25, who appears to have given him domestic happiness in his last years. He was now free to devote his whole powers to the great work which he had so long contemplated. For some time he had been in doubt as to the subject, had considered the Arthurian legends, but had decided upon the Fall of Man. The result was Paradise Lost, which was begun in 1658, finished in 1664, and published in 1667.
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books. A second edition followed in 1674, redivided into twelve books. This ebook follows the second edition. The poem concerns the Christian story of the Fall of Man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. The story of Satan’s rebellion and his fall forms a substantial form of the work, and depicts Satan as an heroic figure in the Greek mould.
Satan is the first major character introduced in the poem. He is introduced to Hell after a failed rebellion to wrestle control of Heaven from God. Satan’s desire to rebel against his creator stems from his unwillingness to accept the fact he is a created being, and that he is not self-sufficient, which is rooted in his extreme Pride. One of the ways he tries to justify his rebellion against God is by claiming that he and the angels are self-created, declaring the angels “self-begot, self-raised”, thereby eliminating God’s authority over them as their creator.
Satan is narcissistic, self-pitying, and persuasive although his logic is almost always flawed, disingenuous, misguiding, or all three. Satan’s persuasive powers are first evident when he makes arguments to his angel-followers as to why they should try to overthrow God. He argues that they ought to have equal rights to God and that Heaven is an unfair monarchy.
All of which is, of course, Milton’s political view on the overthrow of Charles I by Cromwell.
This epic is generally considered one of the greatest works in the English language, and the fine engravings of Gustave Doré do justice to this great poem.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
I added, over the weekend, several works by the early American feminist author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman. First is her important essay The Yellow Wallpaper, which describes the effect on her of confiinement for several months to a single room, as a treatment for post-natal depresssion.
In addition, there are the first two novels in her Utopian “trilogy”, Moving the Mountain and Herland.
The first of these two has some problems: I used the text from archives.org, which is converted from a Google Books scan of a Harvard edition. Unfortunately, the text conversion was poor, but I think I have been able to correct the majority of the horrors. But worse, it seems that the Google scanners missed a couple of pages, namely pp.12-13. Should anyone reading this have access to a print copy, I would be grateful if you could supply the missing text. Or a scan.
For some reason, the Google Books edition is not available for viewing outside the US. Since the work is public domain in all parts of the world, I find this rather odd, if not offensive. Presumably something to do with the deal between Google and Harvard, and/or an intention to profit from the scanning at some point by selling access. Happily, archive.org has a copy.
The third book in the Utopian trilogy, With Her in Ourland, is nowhere to be found online, so we must wait until someone with a print copy is able to scan and convert.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner / Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner / Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
A new online edition of this classic poem, beautifully illustrated by Gustave Doré.
Archives.org and Google Books, disappointing
Someone asked me a little while ago if I had a copy of The Pirate, by Sir Walter Scott. As it happens, I do not. It’s the one title in the Waverley series of novels that my collection lacks. I did a quick search at the time, and could not find it in the usual places. Google Books had it, but only Volume 1. It struck me at the time as somewhat cruel to digitise only Volume 1 of a novel. Where is volume 2? Is there a 3rd volume? (Typical of Victorian and earlier publishing). I guess they’ll get around to it, some time. But it would be nice to know when. And it would be better, I think, to not release Volume 1 until all volumes were ready.
Google Books lists several copies, presumably different editions. But they are all “limited preview” or “snippet view”. Even though this is a public domain work. Well, Google have the right to control distribution of the results of their scanning efforts. I won’t argue with that.
I also checked the Internet Archive, archive.org, to see what they had. A search for “walter scott pirate” turns up 50 items! Great! No. Chaos. First, there’s no indication on the search results of which edition has been scanned. You’d have to go look at each item to find that out, and for detailed edition information you’d have to download the PDF, which is typically tens of megabytes. Grr. Furthermore, among these 50 items are listed some (not all) of 23 volumes illustrated by George Cruikshank. Now, The Pirate may be a lengthy novel, but I hardly think it was published as 23 volumes! I think what this actually is, is a complete Waverley Novels edition including The Pirate. Great, but which of those 23 volumes is actually The Pirate?
Archive.org really needs some serious work on their metadata, or it’s value will be eroded by chaos and an inability to find anything.
Aleksandr Pushkin (1799-1837)
Last week I had some correspondence with the delightful Solange, who was able to give me some valuable feedback on our edition of Anna Karenina. As an aside, she mentioned that our collection lacked anything by Pushkin, a disgrace which I have remedied immediately.
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (Russian: Алекса́ндр Серге́евич Пу́шкин) was a Russian author of the Romantic era who is considered to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. Pushkin pioneered the use of vernacular speech in his poems and plays, creating a style of storytelling—mixing drama, romance, and satire—associated with Russian literature ever since and greatly influencing later Russian writers.
We now have an edition of Eugene Onegin, two translations of The Capatain’s Daughter, and a couple of short stories, and I will add more as I find them.
E.R. Eddison: The Worm Ouroboros
Eric Rücker Eddison is best known for his early romance The Worm Ouroboros (1922) and his three volumes set in the imaginary world Zimiamvia, known as the Zimiamvian Trilogy: Mistress of Mistresses (1935), A Fish Dinner in Memison (1941), and The Mezentian Gate (1958).
I’ve now added an online edition of The Worm Ouroboros for your reading pleasure. I remember reading this 20 years ago, and found it as enthralling a piece of fantasy fiction as anyone could wish for.
’Tis Pity She’s a Whore
I’m pleased to be able to release — for the first time (I believe) in a readable online edition — John Ford’s Jacobean Tragedy,’Tis Pity She’s a Whore, a tale of conspiracy, murder, betrayal, vengeance and incest. Now, you may be thinking, “I get enough of that at home”, but trust me, this is a great story, and one of the classics of English drama.
Interestingly, the incestuous relationship was considered shocking to previous generations, but today, the lovers with the misfortune to be brother and sister, and particularly poor Annabella, are quite sympathetic, while the other characters, particularly the evil Vasques, are all deliciously horrible.
Makeover
I’ve given the site a makeover.
Principally, there’s a new banner for the site pages, and a new background pattern to replace that boring gray. Nothing earth-shattering, and overall quite subtle, I think.
Please tell me what you think.
Olaf Stapledon
Hard-core Sci-Fi fans will know Olaf Stapledon as the highly-original and influential author of Odd John, Last and First Men and Star Maker. He was also a philosopher and lecturer, not to mention damned handsome!
His works here were rescued from a geocities.com site, soon to be defunct.
H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937)
Horror fiction fans will be delighted to see the works of H.P. Lovecraft included in our ebook collection. We have over 50 of his stories online, as well as his Supernatural Horror in Literature, a fascinating study of the history of horror fiction.
Turn down the lights, pull up the bed covers, and settle down to a night of creepy reading!
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